Recently, a TV broadcast receiving apparatus with a large screen as used for home theater system gains popularity, while the needs for a relatively small size of TV broadcast receiving apparatus with a crystal display or the like used for individuals are also increasing. Especially, there is recently developed a portable terminal having a function of a TV broadcast receiving apparatus therein, and it is expected that, with start of broadcasting by 1 segment portion reception service (one-seg) for a cellular phone and a mobile terminal in terrestrial digital TV broadcasting, a portable terminal having a function of a TV broadcast receiving apparatus will be significantly widespread.
As a conventional portable terminal, on the other hand, there is disclosed a portable terminal device which can be folded with its display unit outside in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-176477, for example.
As a portable terminal having a TV broadcast receiving function adopting a folding structure as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-176477, one shown in FIG. 8, for example, is conceivable. The portable terminal 1 is designed so that it is normally folded with its display unit inside, as shown in FIG. 8 (a). When the telephone function is used in this state, the portable terminal 1 is left open so that a display unit 2 can be viewed, as shown in FIG. 8 (b), and then key operation through an operation key unit 3 allows a call.
When watching a TV broadcasting, moreover, a channel can be selected by operation of keys at the operation key unit 3 with the portable terminal 1 being open, as shown in FIG. 8 (b). In addition, the portable terminal 1 can be folded with the display unit 2 outside, which allows watching also in a viewing mode as shown in FIG. 8(c) (hereinafter arbitrarily referred to as “view style”). In this case, channels cannot be switched by operation of keys at the operation key unit 3. Therefore, it is conceivable that the side surface of the portable terminal 1 is provided with another side key unit 4 which is different from the operation key unit 3, and channels can be selected by channel-up/down with use of these keys.
Even in so-called sliding-type or revolving-type portable terminals besides one such as the portable terminal 1 in which the display unit 2 is rotated to set view style, many of portable terminals are generally devised so that the terminal can be transformed to be in a compact form when TV is watched on the portable terminal. Many of such portable terminals also have other keys which are different from ones used for usual calls and the like on their outer surface so that channels can be switched still in view style when a user switches channels while watching TV on the terminal in its compact form.
In such portable terminal, however, there is a problem that a channel cannot be switched to a desired one promptly when a user wants to switch channels while watching a TV program. For example, when channels are switched while a TV program is watched in view style as shown in FIG. 8(c), it is common that channel-up/down is performed by pressing keys at the side key unit 4 on the side surface of the terminal body, as shown in FIG. 8(d). In this case, however, a channel can be changed only by one-up or one-down. Therefore, when a channel which a user wants to watch is separated from a channel being currently watched by several numbers of channels, the operation for changing channels becomes troublesome. It is significantly troublesome especially in a portable terminal requiring a certain time to control a sequential channel switches.
Furthermore, the side key unit on the side surface of the body may be provided with volume adjusting keys and the like besides channel-up/down keys. In this case, it is possible to operate such keys confusing with keys used for channel changing operation. In order to avoid such troublesomeness and to directly press a key for selecting a desired channel, it is required that a folded terminal body is opened to the state shown in FIG. 8(b) and then key operation is carried out with use of the operation key unit 3. That is, even if the portable terminal body is in a compact view style, the body has to be in a large style once. In any cases, when a user intends to change channels while the terminal body is in a style in which the user is watching a TV program, additional efforts and time are required, which causes the user to feel stressed.
Furthermore, when a user wants to search a program which he wants to watch or when a user wants to search a corresponding program from the genre of a program which he wants to watch, there are some possible operations on conventional portable terminals: a program list based on information such as EPG (electronic program guide) and the like is superimposingly displayed on the display unit while a user is watching a TV program and a desired program is selected therefrom; or another browser is activated separately and a keyword of a program which the user wants to watch is input to the browser to search the program, thereafter the user himself carries out operation to change a channel to one in which such program is broadcasted. In this case also, however, it takes time to shift to a search page, or the operation for starting search actually is troublesome. Thus, additional efforts and time are required to change channels, which causes the user to feel stressed.